The demand for mild, biodegradable, environmentally friendly ingredients has been steadily rising. In general, most ingredients are based on, or derived from petrochemicals. Since these materials can sometimes have handling, storage and environmental hazards associated with them, it would be most desirable to use ingredients which are instead derived from agriculturally grown materials, such as carbohydrates. These naturally occurring compounds represent a source of renewable raw materials that are synthetically versatile, readily available, inexpensive, biodegradable, aquatically favorable and optically pure. In addition, it is most desirable to have ingredients that provide mild cleansing, opacifying/pearlescent and suspending action in personal product compositions, as well as provide improved viscosity (thickening) and flow for detergent compositions. Furthermore, it is most desirable to have ingredients that provide improved cleaning and detergency on oily soils and stains. This has been a difficult challenge to meet and it is not surprising to find considerable resource and effort have been directed towards the discovery and development of new ingredients that provide improved benefits in personal product and detergent compositions. The patent literature, cosmetic journals and formularies describe many such ingredients, however, they still do not provide all the answers to the problems encountered in making a totally satisfactory personal product and detergent composition.
It has now been found that novel personal product and detergent compositions comprising glycacarbamate and glycaurea compounds can be effectively formulated. For example, the personal product compositions of the present invention exhibit mild cleansing while simultaneously providing a soft, silvery and pearly luster which often has very favorable consumer appeal. Also, the personal product compositions of the present invention exhibit uniform suspending action of certain performance ingredients (e.g. zinc pyridinethione, silicone fluid etc.) thereby assisting with the delivery of the desirable performance attributes associated with these ingredients. Furthermore, the liquid detergent compositions of the present invention exhibit improved viscosity (thickening) and the powdered detergent compositions of the present invention exhibit improved flow or handling characteristics particularly in the presence of certain hygroscopic performance ingredients (e.g. 2,2'-oxydisuccinate, sulfocarboxymethylsuccinate, etc) while simultaneously providing excellent oily soil and stain removal.
In addition, it has also been found that certain novel glycacarbamate and glycaurea compounds of the invention which contain a disaccharide head group or oxygen heteroatom, exhibit enhanced solubility in water as well as in aqueous personal product and detergent compositions.
Furthermore, an improved method of manufacture of new and known glycacarbamate and glycaurea compounds has been also found wherein said compounds are prepared in good yield, high purity and desirable color without hydroxyl group protection, oligomerization or polymerization.
The glycacarbamate and glycaurea compounds of the present invention represent a naturally derived, cost-effective, biodegradable class of nonionic surfactant compound which has properties equal to, or better than other well known petrochemically derived ingredients, thereby indicating that they are viable, environmentally sound alternatives to traditional petrochemical ingredients.
These findings are quite unexpected and have not been recognized or appreciated in the art.